You’ve optimized your web site, you have great content, but you’re still not getting a lot of traffic? The key could be linking, or more specifically, the number of other websites that link to yours.

While linking is not considered the most important technique in search engine optimization (SEO), it is quite important, especially to Google, the #1 search engine. Google uses the number and importance of inbound links to determine PageRank which partially determines how high a website is listed in their search results. But it is not only Google which considers links important; all other search engine spiders travel along links to search and index web pages, so we can assume links are important to all search engines and essential to Google rankings.

Effective linking strategies take time to develop, but the time spent developing links to your site could very well be the most profitable time you could spend to increase traffic to your site.

Not only is the number of links important, but you must pay attention to the quality of sites which have links to yours. Your site is given a higher ranking if the site that links to yours is also a highly ranked site which offers rich and relevant content. However, just linking for the sake of SEO can lead to a site being penalized by the major search engines. The sites that link to yours must be related sites. This shows the search engine that you want to provide the online public more information and that you are really offering value. This makes the practice of contracting linking to companies that guarantee you links dangerous, as you are not aware of their linking methods (perhaps they just link all comers together) and a mistake could cause you to be banned from a search engine.

So how do you go about the business of getting the right links pointing to your site? There are a variety of ways to do this.

Writing Articles
This is the favorite of a lot of web sites. Articles relating to the content of your site should be written clearly and concisely. You should focus on providing information that is relevant to someone who is interested in getting information on that field. It could be in the form of current news about that sector. For example, a real estate site might offer articles about trends in real estate or it could simply be an article that answers frequently asked questions in the field. Be sure to mention your website in your article.

And how do you get these articles out? You submit them to article directories. These are large repositories of articles. Webmasters come to pick up content for their sites from these directories. Examples include www.ezine.com and www.articledashboard.com as well as others. You will not be paid for your labor, but for every site that picks up your article, that is one positive vote on the Google PageRank algorithm.

Reciprocal Linking
This is probably the hardest part of link building, since it involves finding a relatively high ranking site, convincing them to link to yours, and usually linking back to their site in return. The latter is easy, since the Internet allows you to link to other people’s sites without permission. Getting a high ranking site to link to your site, however, is a challenge.

The first step is to find the most suitable sites. Sometimes the best candidates will be your direct competitors, believe it or not. You can expect them to be hesitant to place a link to your site (then again, who knows?), but you must still ask. There will probably be a webmaster@mysite.com you can contact. When requesting reciprocal linkage, you should provide your site’s URL and description (not too verbose), stating how such a link will benefit their visitors, and consequently, their website’s PageRank and profitability. Other candidates for reciprocal linking are your suppliers, customers, other related businesses, trade associations and discussion groups.

This stage cannot be rushed. You cannot aggressively pressure another site with a request for a reciprocal link. Be polite and subtle and of course, be honest. If you are reciprocal linking with your direct competitors, don’t cheat; place their links on your page.

E-books
Another way of ensuring that a large number of sites have links pointing to your site is to write e-books and offer them for free, while giving the web sites that pick them up the option of selling them to their audience or giving them away also. The browsing public love freebies, so this is an excellent way of ensuring that a large amount of websites have your e books (anything from six to sixty pages) with loads of links back to your site.

Offering others a chance to make money if they join your web site’s affiliate program (if you are offering a product for sale online) will also ensure a large number of websites provide a link to your site, all of them doing the initial pre-selling that is so essential to the sales process. Other linking strategies include submitting your website to directories and advertising on sites through link buying on their sites or on web journals. Press releases are also excellent ways of getting news sites to link to your website.

Content, Content, ContentRemember that content is king. All your efforts are moot if your content cannot keep the searchers once they get to your site. Without good content, no webmaster worth his salt will link to you, so you must offer informative content and a website which truly helps the browsing audience. Good content will ensure the success of your site. The value you deliver with quality content will give you great free PR: word of mouth endorsement on forums, articles and e-zines, in short, “cyber buzz.”

Ron Gartner – This popular singer/entertainer wanted to increase traffic to his website. Because his existing site was created in Flash which has limited search engine optimization (SEO) capability, we devised a special SEO solution for him. We built a duplicate website and created an opening page there in HTML that we fully optimized.

Give your site a Thanksgiving flair. You can have falling leaves appear on your home page or any other page you like. I’ll add this animation for free and I’ll remove it after the season, if you like) (*Note – This effect looks best against light backgrounds. The turkey is optional.)

Print Pet Coupons – A unique website offering local discounts for pet products and services. We designed the graphics on the home page and continue to advise our client in Internet marketing and business strategies. www.printpetcoupons.com

Boyd Cass, Realtor – This Pittsburgh-based real estate agent has tied fine art to the real estate business. Each month, he features a different artist as an attraction for his website. www.boydcass.com

ABiC Northeast – ABiC (America’s Best in Class) aims to be the “American Idol” for Fitness Instructors. Initially focused in the Northeast, the ABiC folks plan to roll out the contest nationwide. The Contact page on the site contains a database we developed to collect and store information of those who sign up. www.abicnortheast.com

Manhattan Business Directory – We expanded the website for this existing client who offers a free printed directory of local business in New York and now in the greater Baltimore area. www.manbizdir.com

Virtually everyone with a website would like more traffic, i.e., more people visiting their site. There are many ways to increase traffic, such as off-line advertising, public speaking, writing articles, word-of-mouth, third party publicity, etc., but I like to focus on search engines. This is because studies have shown that as much as 85% of web traffic comes through search engine listings. So they are extremely important. And yet, it is difficult and often confusing to improve one’s ranking in the search results.

Today, I want to talk about one way of enhancing your search engine rankings. All search engines place a significant value on the visible text (content) on your important web pages and how that content relates to the words or phrases people are searching for. The process is simple to understand and hard to do well. You first need to come up with two or three words (or phrases) people might search for when looking for your kind of products/services. These are your keywords. They should not be so common that millions of people use them and thus millions of sites contain them, nor should they be so obscure that nobody searches for them at all. It is an art to find this middle ground. There are free tools that can help you see how many people search for any given phrase. (One is http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/index.php.)

Another caveat is that the words you think people would use may not be the ones that actually help build traffic. Here is a fascinating example of this phenomenon. A woman launched a website selling cat and dog vitamins. Like most online business owners, she realized she wanted better search results She decided to add keyword phrases to her site. Given her products, she chose the keyword phrases “cat vitamins” and “dog vitamins.’ She built these into her website but had very little success. Then a search engine expert recommended that she instead focus on the reasons people might want these vitamins. She changed her keywords to “hair loss in cats” and one or two other like phrases. She immediately saw a five-fold increase in traffic and business.

So, choose your words carefully.

Once you have identified a good set of keywords, get them into your text, the higher on the page, the better. Ideally, these words or phrases should be in your titles and in the first sentence or two on your home page. Note that they should not be in pictures which search engines cannot read. They must be in the actual text.

There are other places on the website where the keywords should appear as well, and some are a bit more technical to implement. In addition, there are other techniques that enhance rankings, such as linking strategies and pay-per-click services. We help many clients with these services and would be glad to discuss them further with you.

As you probably know, we have relocated to the hills of Washington Heights, a stone’s throw from the George Washington Bridge. I invite any who don’t know the area to come visit. The views are spectacular!

Clearview Projects, Inc. – We redesigned the website for this multi-disciplinary advisory firm specializing in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. www.clearviewprojects.com

America’s Best in Class – This new organization is dedicated to promoting the highest standard of excellence in fitness instruction through a variety of exciting programs and contests. www.americasbestinclass.com

Meryl Shapiro, Attorney-at-Law – We created a new website for this Manhattan medical malpractice attorney. www.merylshapiro.com